Psycho - Original Shower Scene Storyboard By Saul Bass

An interesting little story behind the ‘shower scene’ in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.

Apparently, Saul Bass, the storyboard designer of some key scenes in the film, claimed to have co-directed the iconic sequence.

Saul Bass prepared storyboards for the shower scene, and was on the set during at least part of the filming. After Hitchcock’s death, Bass asserted that he had directed the scene at Hitchcock’s invitation–a claim definitively contradicted by both Janet Leigh and Assistant Director Hilton Green. Bass’s partisans have subsequently held that Hitchcock merely mechanically filmed shots already laid out by Bass. Comparing the storyboards to the filmed scene shows that to be untrue. On the other hand, the most crucial elements of the scene, such as the drain-eye matchcut and the tracking shot that follows it, are in the storyboards. That proves nothing about the author of the scene, however, since Bass drew the storyboards after extensive discussions with Hitchcock about the design of the scene.